Session 10: The decision to return
“Why did you come back?”
The question hung in the air, it made the air suck out of the room and everything seemed heavy. The weight of it pushing down on Alicia‘s chest and shoulders, almost making her slouch standing up. For the first time in a long time, she was speechless. In the past, while talking to the good doctor she would take a moment, ponder any questions that the doctor had, and then come up with an answer. One that was well thought out and true. But this time, there was a mental blank. There was no simple answer to this one. The reason why she left was very simple, survival. I need to get away from someone who is destroying her mentally and physically.
But the reasons why she went back when not as simple as one would have you believe. She could have lied, she could have simply said it was her children, her family, unfinished business. Her own moral compass guiding her home.
But there was a very good chance that the doctor would see right through that answer, that she would tear it apart and Alicia would be left standing there bare and ashamed that she tried to lie to someone who had been helping her through everything.
Her bright blue eyes closed and she took a long deep breath in.
“Pride”
The word was out there, laid out for Dr. Whitlow to see. Not the answer that she was expecting, not the answer that anyone would expect. Pride is often something thought about in a negative way, that it can hold you back from being humble, and true to yourself. Sometimes it is even seen as a stop to being a good person. Pride, after all, comes before the fall or so they say.
Dr whitlows eyes had widened, her pencil state clutched in her fingers. She didn’t write anything down, instead, she tilted her head and leaned forward looking Alicia up and down ”Pride?”. She repeated the word back to her as if expecting Alicia to change what she had said, to go back on her answer and come out with something more acceptable or easier to understand. But the answer never came. “Pride over what?”
“My own failures…”
She paused again, staring out into space and almost losing herself in the moment. The doctor knew when to stay silent and let Alicia work things out for herself in her mind. She took a sharp inhale in and shook her head as if coming out from a daze. “As a mother, as a woman, as a person.”
Dr. Whitlow gave a small nod of understanding, jotting down a few things on her notepad before clearing the throat and sitting back on her chair “Was it hard to leave?”
Alicia swallowed, turning away from the doctor. She ran her hands up over her head and through her hair before turning and sitting down on the edge of the couch. Her elbows balancing on the end of her knees as she leaned forward and put her head in her hands. She slowly looked up, interlocking her fingers together, balancing her jaw on her thumbs against her fingers. “More than anyone could ever understand.”
She closed her eyes. She could hear the hustle and bustle of Tokyo in her ears. It was different in so many other cities that Alicia had been to. It was different than Atlanta, different than New York, different than Toronto or Los Angeles. Tokyo sounded different, it smelt different, it felt different. Alicia loved it, the bright neon lights, the tall skyscrapers that were also surrounded by small arcades with video game machines and Plinko machines.
The smell of sushi and Ramen filling her nose, all of it was something that she missed. And it was something she loved.
She had a small apartment, it was cozy, it was something that she was able to buy after a year of working. Saving all of the money while sleeping on the dojo floor, cleaning and sweeping the mats even after she had started doing shows and earning money. She sat on the floor, a bowl in her hands. The smell of chicken broth filling the small lounge room. She smiled looking at the television having picked up enough Japanese to really start enjoying a lot of the TV shows.
Her eyes moved over to her kitchen bench. A stack of unopened mail sitting there.
She slurped her noodles, drank the broth, and sighed heavily as she got to her feet and moved over towards the kitchen bench. There was one letter that she had avoided opening. One that had been sent from the United States. She picked it up, looking down at it and sneering. She closed her eyes and shook her head putting it back down before moving the ball over to the sink, the sound of the porcelain bowl hitting the metal at the bottom rung out through the apartment.
Her nostrils flared as she felt the anger rising up. She turned on the ball of her feet and stepped over towards the letter again, she picked it up tearing the side and pulling out the piece of paper on the inside. She took a deep breath gliding over every single word. It was an update, a letter from her mother explain to her that things have happened in her absence. What had happened with her children, and the fact that her ex was now trying to get full custody. Cutting Alicia out of their lives seemingly forever.
She could not let that happen.
Any extra money Alicia made, things that she could send them, pictures, videos, all of it. Despite their young age she still took care of them, she still wanted her sons to know that she loved them and was going to help provide for them no matter how much their father wanted to cut her out of their lives. No matter how much money he had, Alicia wanted to make sure she contributed to their lives. But this was too far. She had to go, she had to go back to the United States, back to her mother, back to a world where she was nothing, treated like a nobody. Abused and hurt.
She put the letter down and swallowed hard as she looked over at her phone, she gave herself and not looking into the mirror across the apartment. She looked so different. She’d been in Japan almost 2 years, a year of full-time work and all the training that went into it beforehand. It transformed Alicia Lucas. When she arrived she was a skinny, timid, mentally and physically weak child named Violet Maxwell. The woman who she was now?
Was unrecognizable.
She picked up her phone, flicking it open, and going through to her address book pressing a few buttons before lifting it to her ear. She heard the tones, a pick-up. A voice.
“Hi..Mom”
“Did it anger you?”
Alicia shook her head, sitting back up again after laying down to get more comfortable. It helped her recall details, emotions. He put her back in the moment, it was where she needed to be to make sure she could get through this.
She cleared her throat and folded her arms over her chest “I wasn’t angry. I was upset, upset that I felt that way. Upset that it took me so long to realise I needed to go back and be with my sons.”
“You realised it. There is nothing wrong with that. Or being afraid.” Alicia slowly nodded, looking down at the floor before relaxing a little, her body language showing that maybe the doctor had gotten through to her. “You have made a lot of progress. We can pick this up next time” Her smile was warm, caring, and happy. Alicia stood up and smiled back, staying silent as she moved out into the hallway.
Ruby’s a riot
“Don’t any of you dare say that I didn’t warn you. For months I’ve given every single one of you ample opportunity. Opportunity to realise what I’ve been trying to do for this division since day one, that all of you have turned your backs on. Every single one of you was guilty of it, even those of you who I considered friends and ones that I have respect for. You have all been guilty of turning your backs on what makes professional wrestling great.“
Alicia turned her nose up, shaking her head. Her long blonde hair was tied back away from her face as she felt her arms over her chest.
“It wasn’t just Ruby that I want, it was everyone. I want you all before I faced Kiera. I told you not to push me, I told you not to get on my bad side. See for months years even, I was smiling and acting like the leader for the division. I want to drag every single one of you kicking and screaming to the top of the professional wrestling mountain. I want it every single one of you to realise that you could be the best in the world and to fight to become it. No holding back, no taking second-best as a positive. I wanted the bombshells championship to me more than the sin city wrestling world heavyweight championship, and when I held it? It was..”
Voice is strong, the body language powerful as she points her finger downwards to exclamation point of what she is saying. Alicia‘s bright blue eyes burn as she stares ahead and slowly smirks.
“I told every single one of my opponents that they could beat me, all they needed to do was believe and none of them did. They all fell to me and instead of thanking me, instead of coming back and working harder to beat me and be the best, all I got was jealousy and hatred. All I heard was that I was holding the bombshells championship hostage. After I got injured I went away I came back and I had three goals. I wanted to get revenge, I wanted to win back that championship, and I wanted to get people to admit that I was the best in the world.”
“And I was able to realise the first two goals. I beat Bobbie, I took back the championship, but not one of you could bring yourselves to admit that I was the best. Instead of being celebrated for coming back from that injury and for still being at the top of my game I got hated and pushed down, I got told that I didn’t even deserve to get that championship shot to begin with. And then when I got beaten for that title, you’re all so happy. You celebrated the fact that I lost. And up until Amber becoming the champion, that title meant nothing.”
“She has brought it back to prominence“
“But then, every single time I try to move away from the bombshells championship, to give everyone else a chance to shine in the spotlight like apparently they wanted, I would get drawn back in because even management knew there was no one else. And all that got me? More hatred, more jealousy, more comments that I didn’t deserve.“
Alicia throws her hands up in the air with an exasperated sigh, they slowly slide into the front pockets of her tight-fitting black jeans with tears all around them, as is the style of the time, perfectly covered by black-and-white classic looking converse hightops. But her body? Covered with a brand-new red and black Alicia Lukas franchise T-shirt.
“So then what? Where did we go from here? Well I wanted to go out there and have my moment in the sun, I wanted to unburden myself and tell all of the fans and the people in the back how I felt and why I was in such a horrible place. But that moment got taken away from me. Courtney Pearce decided to come out and steal that moment from me and make it all about her. She decided to shift the spotlight from me, the person who rightfully had it, to her. All because she wanted it. So, I used her as a warning to the rest of the division. I used her as a message to every single one of you.”
“It seems like none of you listened. But there was one person who seemed not to listen even more than the rest of you, instead of just ignoring what I had to say it seems like Ruby steel has put her fingers in her ears and start clicking her tongue so she could not listen to a goddamn word I have to say.”
“I looked Ruby in the eye and I told her she doesn’t deserve to be in the ring with me, I’ve got Ruby in the eye and I told her that if she took this match, if she kept chasing me, something very bad was going to happen to her.“
“Did she listen?“
Alicia shrugs and shakes her head very slowly, she lets out a small half and her breath before rolling her eyes and continuing
“Of course she didn’t.“
“Even after she kept on trying to chase me and cost me matches I still warned her. All the way up to the show right before violent conduct. I told her I wasn’t going to lay a hand on her, and I told her that I was going to hurt her. I gave her the conditions for me to ignore what she did and forget that she did. And she didn’t listen. I kept my word, Joanna attacked her. I didn’t. And even after that, even after that morning Ruby steel is going to go through with this match. At the most violent super card of the year. In a glass tables match.“
“A match where I don’t need to pin her, I don’t need to make her submit, to win I have to take Ruby steele, and drop her body through a glass table. Just think about that for a moment.“
Alicia pushes up to her feet and walks around, her fingertips slowly glide around the circular glass table that is sitting in her hotel room. A thick glass panel, sitting on top of an ornate looking twisted metal pedestal, painted gold.
“Think about how much damage a normal wooden table can do to the body. Your body hitting that wooden breaking it, before hitting the mat, wood shards and splinters all around you, scratching you, nothing about a glass table. Think about it shattering and all of those tiny little pieces of glass hitting the mat and then pushing themselves into your skin scraping, scratching, inserting itself. You think about the pain that you were going to go through, and then you think about the fact that I have absolutely no remorse for anything that I’m about to do to you Ruby. Your girlfriend started this, you decided to continue with it and ignore everything I said. Everything I have ever tried to tell you”
“Well, now you’re gonna listen to me.“
“You and every single other woman in this company is going to take notice of what I have to say and you are going to respect me and listen to me. And when I am done, when you are laying in a pool of your own blood and shattered glass and you were going through more pain than you have ever felt in your life and you realise that you not only failed yourself but you failed Courtney, you are going to look up at me, stare me right in the eyes, and you are going to thank me.”
“It’s the way of the world Ruby, the strongest survive. And you dear? You are just not strong enough.“
Alicia‘s news, her nose and upper lip twisting, the look at the stain on her face unable to be hidden behind any type of mask, one last deep breath and exhale. A smile. And a fade to black.
Session 11: Re-entry
She had been dreading this all week. Every single moment that this came closer was a moment of worry. After their last session, Alicia had sat at home thinking, trying not to go back to those moments where she had to make the hard decisions, trying hard not to remember what it was like to step foot back in her homeland. Trying to forget how it felt to leave a place that first time in her life actually made her feel accepted, Japan was where she first felt truly at home.
Even the elevator right up to the doctors’ office felt strange and wrong. Her hands fumbled together as she tried to take a deep breath and calm herself down, the high-pitched tone as she reached the third floor sent a chill up her spine.
This was a strange feeling, it was more like the first time she came to see her doctor, the first time that she had made this walk down the hallway towards her office. But they have come so far since then, every single session, every single talk seemed to calm Alicia down and make her realize parts of her life and part of herself that were not her fault, that she had been carrying guilt and blaming herself for too long.
But all of those feelings subsided, it became something to look forward to. Someone who Alicia trusted that she was able to unburden herself to every single week, but this was different.
When she walked away last time all she could feel was hatred for herself. A self-loathing that she had actually had in her heart since she left the United States to go to Japan the first time. When she escaped her problems. When she came to the realization that if she didn’t leave she was going to die. But running away to save someone’s life even if it is your own feels wrong if there are children involved. And that is what she had to try and reconcile within herself. Even though the doctor seems to understand, there was still so much that Alicia needed to tell her. And maybe she wouldn’t understand anymore, maybe she would finally see the kind of horrible person that Alicia always believed herself to be.
“You’re late, I was starting to worry.” Dr. Whitlow shook her head and exhale happily. She genuinely seemed to worry about Alicia, it made her feel strange that this woman, even though she was a paid professional, was more motherly to her than her mother. And that may have been an issue. “Come in. We have a lot to talk about.” She tried to hide her trepidation, moving through to the couch, she sat down on the side kicking her legs up and holding her arms over her chest. Her body language showed that she was closed off, nervous, severely worried about what they were about to talk about and what she knew Dr. Whitlow was about to ask “So, we talked about you returning from Japan”
It made Alicia create her teeth together and close her eyes. She gave a small nod, obviously not wanting to go there. “Can we….skip it? Talk about anything else? My abusive relationships? My dads death? My Mother, I don’t know….anything?”
“No.”
“No?”
She shifted in her chair, gripping the pen hard between her fingers as she pulled the notepad sideways tilting her head as she studied Alicia, looking her up and down as she laid back. “This is an important part of your life, a crux moment in your story.” Her eyes were still kind but this time had authority behind them a small smile coming on her face as she sat back. “If you ever want to really move forward in your life, you need to face everything. No matter how uncomfortable and no matter how much you hate it up on yourself, you need to face it and push it away. Understand it and deal with it. So please, pull up your big girl pants, and let’s begin.“
She was right, Alicia knew it, but she didn’t like it. She pushed out the large breath that she had taken in, her arms on folding and instead her hands class being together in her lap. She remembers what it was like sitting on the plane, nervously watching the small cartoon move across the crude yet accurate map. The plane was getting closer and closer, after arriving at LAX and going through all of the re-entry procedures, all of the immigration procedures, she was finally able to get on towards Atlanta. And she knew what was going to be there
All of the progress that she had made while in Japan, reclaiming herself and getting to know the kind of woman she wanted to be, none of that mattered now. What mattered was her sons, what mattered was her family. What mattered was her guilt. For the longest time, Alicia had felt it in her heart whenever she thought about them, that she abandoned them, and even though she knew her ex would never layer hand on them he would spoil them and provide for them, her not being in their lives made her feel sick to her stomach and more guilty than she could feel about anything else in her life.
And now she was going back to that, going back to a world where she was treated as less than nothing, as a possession by Ronnie, as a bargaining chip by her mother, and afterthought I heard father who walked out of her life. In America she was nobody, she meant nothing. In Japan, she had friends, a job, a purpose. And it scared her going home.
After she landed, everything seem to move in slow motion. Moving through the terminal, retrieving her bag. She moved outside onto the pavement. She turned, swallowing hard, she expected her mother to be there. But she wasn’t. She turned her phone on and as it found the nearest cell tower it beat and paused, messages arrived explaining that she needed to find her own way to her mother’s home. Alicia‘s heart sank, her mother thought so little of her that she wasn’t even meeting her at the airport. But then again? What did she expect? She ran away, she ran away from her responsibilities and her duties as a wife a mother, and a daughter.
She should have just ended it when she had the chance. At least then maybe people would regret things that they had said to her, this way? She just proved everyone right and they were able to treat her like shit. This was a low point in her life.
But maybe, she deserved it.
“Stop it.”
The good doctor‘s voice broke through the haze, Alicia‘s eyes shot open and she turned her head towards her. This was the first time that Dr. Whitlow had interrupted her while she was going through my memories. Re-living a story. Alicia‘s heart sank again, this was it. This was the moment where the doctor would tell her that she was beyond saving, beyond help, and not even deserving of it. That she was right to feel this way, in the end, Alicia was a coward. That was her greatest secret, her greatest fear, that everyone would now know that.
She moved forward, dropping the pad on the ground. “That is enough, we have come so far together and you still don’t even see the kind of things that you have been through. You don’t see all of the obstacles that you have overcome and the kind of person that you are today.” Alicia stayed silent, but she swallowed hard the words cutting deep. “For months you and I have talked, you’ve gone through your past and you’ve told me the things that you have been so scared of, I have given you fresh perspective each time and while I’m supposed to remain impartial I’m telling you right now the one thing you need to keep in your heart, it’s not your fault. It has never been your fault.”
Alicia sits up, turning her legs off the end of the couch to the ground, leaning against her body weight. She takes a long deep breath in and pushes it out calming herself down. She isn’t turning her back. She is staying with Alicia. “Thank you….” Dr. Whitlow mood forward placing her hands on Alicia‘s hands. She just gave her a warm grin, there was silence between them because at that point nothing else needed to be said.
The End
“It seems to me, that what we have here is a failure to communicate…”
She chuckles and breath, Alicia’s long blonde hair tied back into a bun with the front hanging down either side of her face, framing it.
“I don’t just blame Ruby, she is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. You say someone like Ruby has never known what it is like to climb to the top of the mountain, to be the best in the world. Sure, like everyone else in wrestling today and in this division she believes maybe one day she could be the best in the world, that she could be a champion and that she could beat every single opponent they put in front of her and turn back every single challenge. She believes one day she could do that. But actually doing it? Having the experience of running through a division like a hot knife through butter and knowing that there was no one at that time you could step to you and actually be a challenge? She has no idea that kind of pressure that puts you under. She has no idea the kind of constant need to be the best that you end up having.“
“And She has no idea what it is like to watch people who want supported you turn on you all because they are jealous of the position that you hold and the accomplishments that you’ve been able to earn.”
“It isn’t your fault Ruby.“
“You don’t know what you are talking about most of the time, you might think you do, but you don’t. And I can’t blame you for that. You have been fed constant lies and constant bullshit your entire career. You have had people telling you that you can be the best, people supporting you, friends and family trying to push you to be the best, and then you’ve had people telling you that you can’t make it. And the ones that tell you that you can’t? They are not being honest either because they are telling you that it is them who will reach the top of the mountain and not you. But Me? Ruby I’m honest. I’m going to do your favour and be honest to a brutal degree because I don’t want to sugarcoat things and I don’t want you to continue wasting your time in a profession and the company that will pass you by use you up and spit you the fuck out.”
Alicia shrugs turning her lips up into a smirk before sliding her hands into the front pockets of her tight-fitting black jeans.
“I guess that is something that your trainers didn’t tell you. Or your family. See, it doesn’t matter that you were trained by a woman who believes herself to be the best, it doesn’t matter that you have been trained by the one person in this company if you can say they had the title as long as me and actually are arguably more synonymous with the bombshells title than me. Because that is not your past, that is not your accomplishment. There is a spark that most people need to have to be the best, this little voice inside them that pushes them for time and time again. When friends and family at that actually helped them, that little voice is the one that picks them up and pushes them forward.”
“I can tell by looking at you, you don’t have that. You don’t have the drive and the talent to get yourself to that level. Now, a lack of talent can still get you far if you have that determination. Look at Keira, she is definitely not the most talented individual you’ll ever see, but she had to drive to get herself over that last hurdle and become the champion. And the foolish optimist in me actually believed and mistook that for talent and let her become a champion, then she became a joke. I used to be someone who would believe in the potential that everyone out, are used to be that champion that wanted to drag the entire division up and put them on my shoulders and make sure that they were at my level. But, I have come to the realisation that some of you are beyond help and are beyond saving and don’t deserve my advice.”
Her voice drops if you octaves into a growl, she bears her teeth like some kind of angry animal, her eyes burn, she swallows hard and takes a deep breath before closing her eyes and re-centering herself.
“So instead, I’m going to teach you a lesson through violence. I’m going to let you get in the ring with me and experience what it’s like to be completely out of your depth, and completely out of your league. Actually, let me rephrase that, you are not just out of your league when you’re are facing me, we’re not even playing the same fucking game.”
“You are playing stick ball, I’m playing baseball. You are playing checkers and I’m playing chess.“
“The thing is, I know you are going to come at me with everything you have Ruby. You are going to do it in some vain attempt to get revenge for what I did Courtney, you have said as much, I have said as much, it’s something that is obvious to anyone who is done any type of research about why this matches happening. The problem, is that revenge can only be taken when the person trying to do it is actually a threat. And you are not a threat to me. You can come at me with all of the aggression and anger that you have in your tiny little body, and it’s going to mean nothing.”
“All I have if I wanted is for you to pay attention, because you need to know what you are getting into.“
Alicia leans forward, her Nostrils flare.
“I will grab you, I will drop you on your head, I will throw you around that ring, and then I will kick your head in. And then, after you have exhausted every single ounce of energy in your body, after you look up at me and realise the dates that I have drag your body into. When the weight and pressure is bearing down on you in the realisation that your revenge failed and you let Courtney down, I will lean in and you will beg me to finish it. You will beg me to end you.”
“The end, funny isn’t it? You decided to say that you will end me at the end of your promo but let’s be real, out of the two of us? I’m the one who ihas ended careers. You haven’t ended anything.”
“But, I am not without mercy Ruby. If I think you have been sufficiently beaten down and if I look into those beady little eyes of yours and see that you have realised the truth? Then you will have my permission to be beaten. I will drop you through a glass table and I will walk away and leave you to pick the pieces of that table out of your body along with the broken shards of your career and probably, your relationship. Because after all, do you think Courtney wants to be with someone who failed to avenge what happened to her?”
“I don’t think so, but you will thank me for this, I already said it last time Ruby., and in advance I’ll just say you are welcome.”